Adopted girl inherits house in Texas so she goes there on a road trip with three friends. Along the way they pick up a thieving hitch hiking Brad Pitt clone (Thelma & Louise homage in a horror movie. How odd.) and get mixed up in small town corruption. Apparently the house holds a chainsaw wielding secret which is now out in the open cutting its way through youthful victims.Hip young adults, electro/rap music, tons of gore and door-open-for-sequel ending. This was dumb and below average, and its only saving grace was Leatherface and the bloody kills. It's a shame Lionsgate couldn't come up with something better after acquiring the TCM franchise with promises of a spectacular reboot (3D, omg!). The gorehound in me rates this 3/5

I saw this when it opened, but I'd been beta-testing various permutations of the dreaded San Juan Boilermaker, so the film was a blur, as was Public Square, and the entire West Side of Cleveland.

But I digress....

I borrowed a copy of MA from the library the other day, and watched it. I liked it, but it didn't have thaty Tim Burton "feel", IYKWIM. Still, it was an enjoyable film, one I'd recommend.

Logged

If it's true what they say, that GOD created us in His image, then why should we not love creating, and why should we not continue to do so, as carefully and ethically as we can, on whatever scale we're capable of?

The choice is simple; refuse to create, and refuse to grow, or build, with care and love.

The Parent Trap (1961): Twins (both played by Hayley Mills) meet and switch homes hoping to work out a plan to reunite their divorced and currently single parents played by Maureen O' Hara and Brian Keith.

This was a fun little Disney film which despite a long running time never fails to be entertaining. Mills is quite good in the lead here and makes both her twin characters sympathetic and easy for the viewer to root on. It helps that the rest of the cast is full of familiar faces and quality character actors. Of course, it might give some false hope in some regards (those from broken homes) but as escapist fantasy, it's fine. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

The Parent Trap II (1986): Sequel to the original Parent Trap sees the twins played by Hayley Mills now fully grown. In this case, Sharon is a recently divorced woman who has a little girl of her own. Sharon's daughter Nikki (Carrie Kei Heim) plots to set her mother up with the single father (Tom Skerritt) of her best friend Mary Grand (Bridgette Andersen) and somehow manages to coax her Aunt Susan into helping her with her plot.

This is somewhat predicate fare and feels more forced and much more far-fetched than the original film. Still it doesn't overstay its welcome and is entertaining enough as a way to kill close to an hour and half some boring evening. Clearly though, this film feels aimed even more squarely at the young preteen female viewer and plays as some type of cheesy romcom. Disappointing compared to the original film. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

Dying Breed (2008) - some people go to Tasmania to search for the Tasmanian tiger, but instead find inbred hillbilly cannibals. It plays out in the usual fashion. I remember watching this a long time ago and not liking it, but last night I enjoyed it quite a bit. Good scummy atmosphere, fairly suspenseful, and other than the one loudmouth a-hole character the other three were okay. 3.5/5.

MST3K Crash of the Moons - Joel era episode. I liked the General Hospital short a lot I think they are good at doing more mature sort of stuff sometimes. Some funny stuff in the main feature too the movie itself is very dull, mostly really uninspiring "heroes" talking in control rooms. 3.75/5

WALK AWAY RENEE (2011): A documentary filmmaker is moving his mentally ill mother Renee from a group home in Houston to New York to be closer to him; on the trip she loses her medication and dementia and paranoia set in. Some of the scenes appear to be recreations, and there are curious psychedelic montages to illustrate mom's crazy state of mind. A touching, if meandering, tribute. 3/5.

The Warriors (1979): Hoping to reunite all the gangs in the New York City area, charismatic gang leader Cyrus (Roger Hill), head of the most powerful gang in the city - the Gramercy Riffs, calls a special summit designed to unite and organize the gangs. The meeting was supposed to include no weapons but someone decided not to follow the rules and Cyrus is taken out. Somehow the blame gets pasted to a gang of toughs from Coney Island named the Warriors. Now the Warriors must fight through the night to get back home with every gang in the city on their trail not to mention a ton of cops and even more unexpected trouble.

While this is never truly believable, it nevertheless manages to draw the viewer into its cartoonish fantasy of a group of unlikely heroes trying to find their way back home and survive against impossible odds. The music, scenery, gang colors all work to make this one distinct and memorable. It's hardly surprising how it would become a cult favourite. It's basically a classic, somewhat epic hero story transported to a 70s era New York City, but one arguably more colorful than even the reality. **** out of ***** stars.

Aliens From Outer Space: UFO Landings, Crashes and Retrievals (2011): Another documentary from Bill Knell. Basically the same as UFOs Do Not Exist! in style and execution. It's just Knell narrating over a continuous slide show again. While sometimes the subject matter is slightly interesting (subject matter this time focuses on rumored crashes and landings), much too much of what is presented here is little more than hearsay or so and so told me a story about a UFO encounter plus the style of presentation proved decidedly dull especially as this runs well over 2 hours. Those who aren't lovers of stuff like this should avoid unless they want something to lull them to sleep. ** out of ***** stars.

Invasion of the B girls (1973) - It had been a long long time since I saw this. I'd vaguely remembered the jungle gym bee machine they had and the general Swank (magazine) ness of the girls but not much else. It was a crummy quality version on youtube but it did the trick.

A bunch of women scientist turn themselves into bees or something and have sex with men till the men keel over. They have to wear shades because their eyes become bee eyes. The bodies aren't all that voluptous and the sex scenes themselves are nothing to write home about but its a good cheap trashy movie. 3.75/5

From Within (2008) - so there's this town full of religious, well, fanatics really, and then there's two people who are into witchcraft. One person after another starts committing suicide, and the religious people blame the witchcraft people for putting a curse on them. Our religious girl teams up with the witch guy to put an end to the curse. Meh, this wasn't really believable, it was like the whole town was a cult and everything's pretty cliched. The main girl was likable, the main guy barely had any personality - or lines - at all, and absolutely everyone else was 100% unlikable. The plot itself was okay, seen it all before. 2.25/5.

I watched DETENTION OF THE DEAD last night. This was a very funny zom-com - kind of a mash up of THE BREAKFAST CLUB and SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Definitely worth the $4 rental, with a great cast, funny dialogue, and a severed undead English teacher's head that is very expressive. All around zombie teenage angst fun, with some clever, gory kills.4/5

Video games and computer addicted high school kid logs into a military computer designed to play simulated world war games. Authorities think the Russians are launching a missile attack for real and hunt down the kid. Dial up/floppy disk PC Adventure/Thriller that has aged pretty well I thought. Ally Sheedy was most impressive, and look out for an early performance by Michael Madsen. 4.5/5

Red Dawn (1984) (Blu-ray)

A group of high school friends are hiding out in the mountains after the Russian military has invaded America. Controversial Action-Fantasy that made me giggle (for various reasons) throughout. According to wiki it's one of the most violent movies ever, and the first movie released with an PG-13 rating. 4/5